Tell HN: iOS 27 does not allow Apple Intelligence to be disabled

Posted by nunez 1 day ago

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I'm surprised that this didn't get more attention during the Beta period.

iOS 26 had a toggle you could select to disable all Apple Intelligence features.

That toggle was removed for iOS 27. Every AI feature has to be turned off individually: https://archive.ph/AE72I

There is a way of turning it off through Content Restrictions in Screen Time, but one Redditor reported that doing this disables CarPlay for some reason.

This is pretty disappointing.

Comments

Comment by nunez 1 hour ago

Okay, I have an update.

It turns out that you CAN disable MOST of the Apple Intelligence features without compromising HomePod features or CarPlay by doing these things:

1) Going to Settings > Siri and changing the "Language" to something other than "English (United States)." (I changed mine to "English (Canada).") This automatically disables Siri AI and restores Siri Classic. You'll need to go through voice training again though.

2) Going to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Siri and setting "Siri" to "Siri Classic."

3) Going to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Siri and setting all Apple Intelligence features (Writing/Math Assistance, Image Creation, Extensions) to "Blocked" or "Don't Allow"

4) Going to Settings > Messages and setting "Summarize Messages" to OFF

5) Going to Settings > Mail and setting "Summarize Messages" to OFF. (This might disappear after following step [3])

Steps 1 and 2 delete the Apple Intelligence models from your phone, giving you about 30GB of space back.

(Courtesy goes to this Reddit post: https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1wh7i10/ios_27_how_to_...)

Comment by rgovostes 23 hours ago

There is no actual feature called "Apple Intelligence", it's a marketing term for a handful of disparate features that they are applying everywhere.

Is the excellent OCR that lets me select text within an image Apple Intelligence? It uses local models. Or the prediction engine that optimizes battery life by backgrounding apps you're less likely to use, or applies updates while you're sleeping? What about the Latent Semantic Mapping text classification framework, which uses language models for fuzzy document search -- and has been around since 2007?

It wouldn't have made sense in the past to add a master kill switch for all these features, and it doesn't really make sense now to have one for the latest iteration.

Comment by _boffin_ 22 hours ago

i really thought "Apple Intelligence" is the addition of data into Knowledge.db, but i guess not.

Comment by dzhiurgis 12 hours ago

If it uses local models, why I need to join waitlist?

Comment by mingus88 5 hours ago

That’s for Siri AI and other features which use private cloud compute

Comment by iAMkenough 22 hours ago

Yes, but at the end of the day they took away a toggle that allowed you to remove the latent models you don’t use and reclaim space you need.

With Apple Intelligence disabled and ~8GB reclaimed, you could still OCR, still use Siri, still separate subject from background, translate text, so on and such.

Now it’s all or nothing, shoving LLM weights into 128GB of storage for some people.

There’s a better approach.

Comment by layer8 22 hours ago

CNET says that the OS auto-reclaims the space when needed: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/how-to-turn-...

Comment by iAMkenough 20 hours ago

That’s actually more frustrating, since it qualifies with “that now-inactive space” after disabling Siri.

To me that means if you go with the “nothing” route and disable Siri, the local latent models aren’t removed from storage until your device fills up, with the hope you enable Siri again.

Akin to all of Microsoft's apps with disparate Windows features pre-installed and unable to be removed from your device except through Storage Sense.

Comment by Jackknife9 13 hours ago

If you go to settings and disable Siri AI and Siri and then re-enable it you get the option "Try Siri AI" and "Use Siri Classic". This disabled most AI features from what I can see. The only one it didn't was notification prority.

Comment by skeledrew 17 hours ago

So interesting. Before, it was great rejoicing, smugness and whatever other related expressions when headlines were saying "Apple is sitting out AI". Now, there's evidence that it isn't the case, and there's... mostly silence, and some mild disappointment. Everywhere else there is outrage and strong feeling expressed about how Y company is slipping AI into everything, but not when it comes to the fruit company. Of course they can do no wrong; it's always the user who's at fault and needs to adopt the correct(ed) path. Funny people.

Comment by kingkongjaffa 12 hours ago

It's just following changing sentiment.

At the time of the adverts, only a few % of tech workers were using LLMs for daily use, that number has skyrocketed and so has the appetite and acceptance that this technology is here to stay and be embraced as a serious tool for work.

It was not at all clear (to me as a relative 'normie' and not an AI researcher) prior to about GPT4 / Sonnet 3 that they would be more than a research lab toy.

Comment by skeledrew 1 hour ago

I don't get the feeling that the outrage has decreased. Actually I'd say it's increasing as more fields are "threatened" by the incursion.

Comment by pm_confidant 9 hours ago

I belive they are investing on Apple Intelligence a lot more, I have myself built a series of apps on top

https://yourconfidant.ai/

Comment by neilalexander 23 hours ago

There is a “Turn off Siri” option. Apple Intelligence & Siri are now effectively one.

Comment by metaltyphoon 21 hours ago

Didn’t matter, the space on disk still not reclaimed. On my macbook air it’s 35GB

Comment by brudgers 18 hours ago

The headline was “iOS”

Comment by metaltyphoon 17 hours ago

Applies to both sadly.

Comment by al_borland 14 hours ago

My iPhone 16 Pro shows Apple Intelligence using 6.62GB, not 35GB.

Comment by metaltyphoon 10 hours ago

My iPhone 15 pro is showing 15GB

Comment by gaws 5 hours ago

All a ploy to buy a newer phone with more storage.

Comment by nunez 5 hours ago

This also turns off CarPlay and disables Voice Recognition for HomePods.

Comment by ChristmasTomer 9 hours ago

Yeah, this kinda sucks.

I don’t really care what Apple calls it. If there was one switch before, why remove it?

If this stuff takes up a few gigs, just let people turn it all off. Easy.

Comment by singularity2001 9 hours ago

Lucky you, I cannot enable it (EU).

Comment by hnburnsy 21 hours ago

Just like notifications in iOS that cannot be disabled globally.

Comment by aristofun 18 hours ago

That really is a bummer, especially on basic older models where 8-20Gb of space wasted on this gimmick even if turned off is not nothing.